From 1 July 2026, EU buyers face a new EUR 3 per-item customs charge on purchases from outside the bloc, scrapping the old EUR 150 duty-free exemption and shifting costs to sellers under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1200.
Poland’s Ministry of Finance has announced changes to e-commerce rules effective 1 July 2026, including the removal of the customs duty exemption for online purchases from outside the EU valued at up to EUR 150.
The EU scrapped its old EUR 150 duty-free threshold and replaced it with a flat EUR 3 customs charge per item, regardless of what you actually paid for it.
For years, small shipments from outside the EU—anything under EUR 150—sailed through customs without duty. That’s finished. Now every single item in your order gets hit with EUR 3, added to the customs declaration.
Buy two T-shirts separately, and that’s EUR 6. Buy a T-shirt, phone case, and keychain together, and that’s EUR 9. The system counts “items” as groups of the same type per declaration, so buying one phone case and one charger counts as two items, not one.
Technically, the customs debt falls on the seller, online marketplace, or their customs agent—not you. But don’t expect that to stay abstract. Many sellers will fold the EUR 3-per-item cost into shipping charges or inflated prices. The EU is banking that this hassle and cost kill some low-value imports; realistically, it just shifts who charges you for the duty.
Furthermore, consumers returning goods purchased from non-EU countries will no longer receive refunds of customs duties or VAT, making international online purchases and returns more costly from 1 July 2026. The change applies to imports from countries including China, the US, the UK, and Turkey.
Earlier, the EU published Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1200 of 5 June 2026 in the Official Journal of the European Union, introducing an interim flat-rate customs duty of EUR 3 on goods contained in small parcels valued at less than EUR 150. The measure took effect on 1 July 2026.
